The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Amazon threatens billions in fine: EU competition watchdogs accuse online retailers of abuse of market power

2020-11-10T13:36:00.787Z


The EU accuses Amazon of using data from third-party providers in its web shop and thus gaining advantages over the competition. The EU push could be quite expensive for the group


The EU accuses Amazon of using data from third-party providers in its web shop and thus gaining advantages over the competition.

The EU push could be quite expensive for the group

  • Amazon

    is known for analyzing incredible amounts of data in order to entice its users to place more and more orders.

  • The EU Commission

    has long been skeptical of

    tech giants

    like Amazon.

  • Now the

    data collection

    frenzy could be the

    undoing of the internet retailer.

Brussels - The world's largest online retailer,

Amazon

, is violating antitrust regulations, according to the EU competition watchdog.

The company was accused of systematically using non-public business data from independent retailers for its own retail business, the

EU Commission in

charge announced

in

Brussels

on Tuesday

.

According to the authority,

Amazon

now has the opportunity to comment on the objections.

If the competition watchdogs then stick to their assessment,

Amazon

could

face

a billion-dollar fine.

If companies violate EU competition rules, they risk fines of up to ten percent of their annual global sales.

The proceeds from

Amazon

amounted in 2019 to about 280.5 billion US dollars.

The EU has been targeting Amazon since June 2019

The

EU

competition

watchdog launched an investigation into potentially illegal business practices in July 2019.

Above all, they are looking into the question of whether the group is unfairly competing with other retailers who use its platform.

This is possible because

Amazon

not only sells goods as a retailer, but also makes its website available as a platform for other retailers.

Regarding the objections, the EU Commission now writes that the results of the investigation showed that the employees of the

Amazon

retail store have

very large amounts of non-public seller data available, which flow directly into the automated systems of the store, where they are aggregated and used to

balance

end customer

offers

and strategic business

decisions

from

Amazon

.

This is to the detriment of the other sellers on the marketplace.

We reached the preliminary conclusion that @amazon illegally has abused its dominant position as a marketplace service provider in DE & FR.

@amazon may have used sensitive data big scale to compete against smaller retailers.

Now for @amazon to respond.

@EU_Competition

- Margrethe Vestager (@vestager) November 10, 2020

Amazon

could, for example, concentrate its offers on those products in a category that sold best and adapt its offers on the basis of non-public data from competing sellers.

Amazon

should not use

data on the activities of independent sellers

for its own benefit if the company competes with these sellers,” commented the responsible Vice President of the EU Commission,

Margrethe Vestager

.

The competitive conditions on the

Amazon

platform must be fair.

Amazon: EU Commission wants to chain tech giants

The market power of the US technology giants has been causing discomfort in Brussels for a long time.

There are growing fears within the EU Commission that Europe could technically be left behind by the USA and China.

Now the EU Commission apparently wants to tighten the pace.

At the beginning of December, the Commission wants to

target

a package of measures to curb the market power of Amazon,

Facebook

and

Google

.

Media experts are also pushing for appropriate steps.

If Europe “does not want to end up as a digital colony of America in the medium term and China in the future”, Europe must react now, said the long-standing Burda board member

Stefan Winners

to the nationwide Ippen Digital editorial network.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-11-10

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-13T15:01:05.437Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.